SEO - lots of 403 pages

[Alvin63]

So the site was offline for about 2 months with nodes made private. It's now fully back online. Now I know that not all pages are indexed but currently I only have 830 showing as indexed and 42.4k showing as not indexed. 25.5k of those show 403 blocked due to access forbidden. Is this just a time thing? I have had unregistered viewing a bit restricted (as in not viewing member's list or attachments to posts) would that be it? Otherwise fully viewing is enabled.

Another 13.8k show as excluded by "no index" tag. Which I'm aware can be normal but maybe not that many?

Also wondering if it's all the deleted member posts that are not being indexed. All members were deleted when the forum closed (and people are just signing up again now).

 

[ENF]

I only have 830 showing as indexed and 42.4k showing as not indexed. 25.5k of those show 403 blocked due to access forbidden. Is this just a time thing?

Yes, it will take time to update those. You can 'Validate Fix' those in the search console



Click that and then "Validate Fix" to get Google to revisit those 403'd pages.

Another 13.8k show as excluded by "no index" tag. Which I'm aware can be normal but maybe not that many?

That really depends on what you've done configuration wise on the site. You can start with checking each node settings page and look for this section in the "Advanced Options":

Also wondering if it's all the deleted member posts that are not being indexed.

"No index" means you've told search engines that you don't want those pages indexed. Either through the ACP above, robots.txt or other manual setting in templates, etc.

 

[Alvin63]

Thank you - much appreciated.